Canada: 'Fightback' Visit to GM Blockade, June 4th 2008

The mood of the workers was
very militant and it is quite clear that they are willing to remain on the
picket lines for as long as it takes to win. Terry McDonald, a member of the
Oshawa Local's bargaining committee, told Fightback, "We're right.
We're going to stay as long as it takes for them to realise that."

Fightback recently published our analysis of
the latest attack on the Canadian Autoworkers by General Motors, in which the
corporation announced plant closures in Oshawa,
Ontario. This announcement flies
in the face of a collective agreement GM had signed with the union less than a
month ago, guaranteeing no closures until 2011, and promising new products
lines to replace job losses. The planned closures would result in 2,600
layoffs. A day after this announcement, on the 4th of June, CAW workers from
Oshawa Local 222 responded by establishing a blockade around the General Motors
headquarters building in Oshawa. Fightback sent a delegation to the blockade on
the second day of the action to show solidarity with the workers and to get a
ground level perspective on the fight to save jobs.

The mood of the workers was
very militant and it is quite clear that they are willing to remain on the
picket lines for as long as it takes to win. Terry McDonald, a member of the
Oshawa Local's bargaining committee, told Fightback, "We're right.
We're going to stay as long as it takes for them to realise that."

There was a strong feeling
of urgency that the movement needs to grow, to encompass a larger portion of
the community. "For every auto worker that loses their job, seven others
in other sectors lose their jobs. We aren't just fighting to save the union
workers here, we're fighting to save the whole community," Linda Curier, a
CAW worker and mother, said.

There was also an
understanding that if the national leadership of the CAW took on the fight
wholeheartedly, it would have a larger impact. However, many workers expressed
frustration with the Hargrove administration for being too friendly with
management, giving up to many concessions, and, most of all, being unwilling to
use militant tactics to fight to save jobs.

"Some people in the
CAW seem to think that when there's a problem, 'Oh, the Union
will fix it.' They need to wake up! The big-boys are just dragging their feet,
spending too much time on the golf course instead of the picket line," one
worker said.

At one point during the
day, John McCallum, former Liberal Finance Minister, arrived at the blockade to
try to paint the Liberal Party a pro-worker opposition to the Harper Tories. He
was immediately surrounded by angry workers, who had not forgotten the
Liberal's record. "We're not the government," was McCallum's talking-point
response to demands for political action to save the plants slated for closure.
One member of the bargaining committee interrupted McCallum, "You were the
government, and we know what you did then: Nothing!" At one point, the
only thing protecting the right honourable gentleman from his would-be
constituents was the ring of journalists and cameramen that had formed around
the ex-minister.

"They spend so much
effort to get down what he says," said Terry McDonald, "they should
listen more to what we say. They haven't got the story right, but they know
which side their bread is buttered."

The most telling aspect of
the day was the attitude of many of the workers towards the idea of
nationalization. "We've put so much effort into supporting these
companies. We are constantly telling people to buy Canadian, and I still am.
But no matter how much effort we put into supporting these guys, they have no
loyalty to the country they're in or to the people that work for them,"
said a worker from Kitchener, Ontario, "They pour hundreds of millions of
tax-payer money into these corporations and then they turn around and move the
whole sha-bang to China or Mexico or some other country where they shoot you
for being in a union. I figure we've paid for it, now we ought to own it."

One CAW retiree told us,
"We've got guys that have worked their whole lives in the plant, had their
children follow them in, been on lay-off for years at a time and they still
come back to work. If that ain't worth the cost of a plant, nothing is."

Fightback had brought copies of our analysis
of the auto industry, calling for it to be nationalized, which we had been
distributing. In a very short time workers began actively seeking us out for
political literature. By noon, we had none left.

The workers are prepared to
fight, what is more, they recognize that it had been the militant actions used
by the movement, such as factory occupations and the blockade, that have had
the most impact on the bosses and their hirelings in government. They want to
see more of the same, on a larger scale, lead and co-ordinated by the trade
unions and the NDP. However, it is up to the leaders of these organizations to
put the power of the labour movement's apparatus at the service of the workers.
The fight for these plants is a fight for the future of the working class in Ontario. All the gains
we have made in the last 60 years are bound up with the fate the CAW workers.
There are more confrontations on the horizon, and for the sake of our future:
they must be won.